Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (mainly Aus., also bludger bloke, bludger boy) a thief, orig. working with a prostitute on the Murphy (Game), the n. (1), who accompanies theft with violence.

1851		Bristol Times & Mirror 22 Mar. 6/6: The man is on of them [...] ‘bludgers,’ who lurk behind the girls [...] and when the ‘moll’ fondled a man to a certain extent, when she has got his watch or a purse, she gives a signal and up comes the ‘bludger,’ asks the man what business he has there with his wife [...] up goes the ‘bludger’s’ fist, down goes the man, and off they all goes.
1856		H. Mayhew Great World of London 46: Those who plunder with violence; as [...] ‘bludgers’ or ‘stick-slingers,’ who rob in company with low women.
1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 25: those who plunder with violence [...] 3. ‘Bludgers,’ or Stick-slingers, plundering in company with prostitutes.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 10/1: A bludger and his mot ’ticed a cully into the ‘Deadhouse,’ and while he was parting for the booze buzzed him of three caser and a deaner. A man who robs in company with a prostitute and his woman enticed a victim into the ‘Dead-house’ [...] and while he was paying for the drinks picked his pocket of three crowns and a sixpence.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 37: Sergeant Twitcher would pleasantly relate how [...] the prisoner at the bar was to be found in Bludger’s Kitchen in the Dials.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 23 Sept. 6/5: A few highly respectable, but slightly giddy gentlemen [...] have found their way into the haunts of the strange women and departed [...] bilked by the lady and biffed by the ‘bludger’.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 21: BLUDGERS: thieves fellows who do not hesitate to use the bludgeon.
1901		Dubbo Liberal (NSW) 2 Jan. 2/7: These rascals (among whom are a notorious ‘bludger’ and a 15th rate pug [...]) nightly waylay men whom they judge to be possessed of a few pounds.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Apr. 8/6: Then out there steps a bludger bloke, / A little joss were he, / And things wot each one sed to each / Were not - well - harmony.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Jan. 45/8: When bludger boys invade your bars, / Blame it on the Barman.
1912		Truth (Sydney) 13 Oct. 9/7: He asked, ‘What for?’ and witness replied, ‘For being a bludger.’ The lovely article replied, quite cocky like, ‘You can’t put me in for that - I’ve a hawker’s license, and I’ve beat them every time they try to drag me,’ whereupon the two constables immediately put him in.
1912		Truth (Sydney) 10 Nov. 12/2: [headline] LIZZIE LUMBERED. A Sussex Street Solicitress BUMPS A BRACE OF BOYS IN BLUE. Bright Bobbies Boob Her Bludger Bloke Barnay.
1921		Truth (Perth) 9 July 5/7: Collins was one of those detestable creatures to whom, in the ‘argot’ of the ‘underworld,’ the word ‘bludger’ is applied. This ugly word was not, we are glad to say, invented in Australia. So long ago as 1856, it was used by Henry Mayhew in his book, ‘The Great World of London.’ .
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 60: The world’s full of no-goods – bludgers, sneaks and thieves.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 44: ‘Associated Thieves’ was what they should call themselves. The poor people were poor enough without these thieving bludgers so gratefully helping them to get deeper and deeper into debt. [Ibid.] 98: So anyhow, Dave, I got even with the big Jew bludger.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 257: [of greedy possums] ‘Couldn’t be any worse than these little bludgers’.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘Soup, you old bludger, gettin’ a bit?’.

2. (also bluders, bludger-boy) a general term of abuse, usu. implying that the person in question lives off the efforts and money of others.

1897		Kalgoorlie West. Argus 22 Jan. n.p.: Accused came up, called them ‘a pair of bludgers’, and said he would arrest them.
1902		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Nov. 4/7: Armanesco [...] protected the bludgers who wrought wrong against the victim Spazziani.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Oct. 4/8: When the bludger-boys invade your bars / [...] / To owe for snifters and cigars / Blame it on the Barman.
1910		Truth (Perth) 10 Dec. 4/8: Quite contented, she are living / With another feller sure, / Who, dear sir, to put it plainly, / Are a bludger on to her.
1927		Cairns Post (Qld) 1 Jan. n.p.: [...] charging him with having used insulting words, vis: ‘You are the biggest bludger in Innisfaul’.
1939		Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 2 Nov. 8/3: He had referred insultingly to the King as ‘a bludger’.
1942		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 5 Oct. 2/4: We’ll make the bludger Rommel / Think he’s copped the Gyppo Heaves.
1946		D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 119: It’s only bludgers like Nicko who can look happy.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 16: It isn’t good for a pacifist to meet these civilian bludgers during a war.
1957		‘Nino Culotta’ They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 203: A bludger is the worst thing you can be in Australia. It means that you are criminally lazy, that you ‘pole on yer mates’, that you are a ‘piker’—a mean, contemptible, miserable individual who is not fit to associate with human beings.
1961		X. Herbert Soldier’s Women 370: You’d only piss it down the sink or let some bludger take it off of you.
1971		K. Gilbert Cherry Pickers II i: I’ll bust you ya little bludger!
1974		D. Ireland Burn 141: Kincaid won’t open Mary’s bundle till those bludgers go.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 10: I’m not an out-and-out bludger yet.
1982		R. Hall Relations 137: Just look at the bludger, Billy roared. Can’t get his thieving hands on the cash fast enough .
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 16/1: bludge to cadge, scrounge or overdo acceptance of hospitality without contributing [...] A bludger here is much milder than the English harlot’s bully or bawdyhouse bouncer, or thief favouring a bludgeon.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 71: ‘Straighten ‘im! Straighten ‘im! Ah fuckyer Neville! You low bludger!’.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘You greasy litle bludger’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] Hogan and his men had diverted their attention from prostitutes, bikies and criminals to the disruptions of ‘commies, ratbags and bludgers’.

3. a pimp.

1898		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. Red Page: A bludger is about the lowest grade of human thing, and is a brothel bully.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 21: BLUDGER: a man who is kept by or lives on the earnings of a prostitute or brothel keeper: a prostitute’s fancy man. The word has come to be applied to any person who takes profit with risk or disability or without effort or work.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 3/2: A Victorian plain-clothes constable [...] coolly admitted in open court the other day that he had accepted the assistance in his duty for a fortnight of one of those slimy invertebrates known as ‘bludgers,’ and a particularly vile specimen at that.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 19 June 1/2: This man Hart is a notorious bludger and has been living on women of the unfortunate class .
1909		H. Lawson ‘The Song of a Prison’ in Roderick (1967–9 II) 312: They hear in the church on a Sunday the sound of a soul freed from vice / In the voice of a bludger singing of ‘hangels’ and ‘parrowdice’.
1910		Kalgoorlie West. Argus 14 June 27/2: The police described him as a ‘common bludger’ who had been living with Mignonee Vasseur.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 10/5: [headline] Brutal Bludger Boobed.
1916		Cairns Post (Qld) 10 Jan. 2/3: A man comes here with the intelligence of a chimpanzee and the manners of a brothel bludger.
1924		W. Australia 3 July 11/5: The accused was a bludger, living on the earnings of prostitutes.
1934		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 17 Feb. 6/6: He understood that a ‘bludger’ was a man who lived with a woman.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1939		D. Maurer ‘Prostitutes and Criminal Argots’ in Lang. Und. (1981) 117/1: box-coat. A pimp. Also barber, bludger, boilermaker, bung, bung-kite, buzzard, cat, custom-made man, fish and shrimp, he-madam, Latin lover, Louis, lover, mack, McGimp, salmon-man, star boarder, sweetback.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 271: At least he wasn’t a bludger.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 89: A bludger is a pimp, a man who lives on women.
1953		D. Cusack Caddie 93: Prostitutes and their bludgers have priority in this place.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 9: Bludger: In theory one who lives on the earnings of a prostitute.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 59: A ‘bludger’ was 19th-century British slang for a man who lived off the earnings of a prostitute. It was also used in Australia with this sense.

4. a white-collar worker (from the point of view of a manual labourer, who sees such work as idling).

1910		Truth (Sydney) 27 Mar. 5/3: Blackguard band of blatant, bumptious bummers and bludgers, who bum and bludge on Labor [AND].
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 131: [I’m going to] marry a millionaire’s daughter and become a respectable bludger.
1957		D. Whitington Treasure upon Earth 53: ‘Bludgers’ he dubbed them early, because in his language anyone who did not work with his hands at a laboring job was a bludger.
1960		A. Buzo Front Room Boys Scene ii: I don’t like those la-di-da hoity-toity upper-crust bludgers with their fancy accents, so I chucked Lord Muck out the window.
1979		Canberra Times 19 Sept. 2/2: It was when you came to analyse the reasons for the uncomplimentary stereotype of public servants as a pack of tea-swilling bludgers [AND].

5. (also blodger) an idler, a lazy person or creature; a worthless object.

1931		Longreach Leader (Qld) 8 May 11/1: You have been nothing but a bludger all your life.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 87: All the men here are loafers and bludgers.
1940		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 403: He went up to London and straightaway strode / To army headquarters on Horseferry Road / To see all the blodgers who dodge all the straff / By getting soft jobs on the headquarters staff.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 103: If I had a fine bludger’s job like this I’d take it seriously.
1959		D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 142: The low-down bludger comes home at eighty to one.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 147: ‘Get in, yuh bludger,’ swore Duke’s mate as he prodded the bull with a long metal-pointed stick.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 143: I’m a bludger. I’m a drunk. I’m a jailbird.
1987		M. Bail Holden’s Performance (1989) 291: Don’t think we’re nothing but a pack of bludgers.
1997		R. Barnard No Place of Safety 52: She was a mite sceptical about his treatment of the obvious skivers and bludgers.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 201: I styill had The Wonder Book of Australiana, but now it was redundant. I knew that bludger inside out.
2007		D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 151: The other two forkies [...] were the biggest fuckin’ bludgers [...] Aussies’ll do anything to get out of work.
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] He sure as shit wasn’t going to wait for some bludger tourists at the boat ramp to back their trailers in.
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 181: Never mind the woodpile coming a gutser. Bludger’d built it half arsed.

6. as a term of affection.

1985

R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 79: I had a prick of a time myself [...] Not like you, you lucky bludger. That nice big house, the pool, all on your own.

7. used verbally as euph for fuck v. (3)

2011

Independent 2 June 24/4: Well, bludger that.